National Oil and Gas Assessment

News & Recent Publications

National Assessment of Oil and Gas Project

USGS Publication: Digital Data Series DDS–69–ZThe U.S. Geological Survey has compiled a map of shale-gas assessments in the United States that were completed by 2012 as part of the National Assessment of Oil and Gas Project. Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey quantitatively estimated potential volumes of undiscovered gas within shale-gas assessment units. These shale-gas assessment units are mapped, and square-mile cells are shown to represent proprietary shale-gas wells. The square-mile cells include gas-producing wells from shale intervals. ...

2007–2010, in Wainwright, Alaska

USGS Publication: Open-File Report 2014–1004
The U.S. Geological Survey, in partnership with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the North Slope Borough, and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation conducted a four-year study designed to identify, define, and delineate a shallow coalbed natural gas (CBNG) resource with the potential to provide locally produced, affordable power to the community of Wainwright, Alaska.

USGS Publication: Scientific Investigations Report 2013–5131In an attempt to determine if this scale of deformation is detectable with conventional wireline logs, petrophysical properties (primarily mineralogy and porosity) were measured by interpretation of gamma-ray and bulk-density logs. The results of performing a statistical correlation of wireline logs from nine wells indicated that there are discontinuities within the Millboro Shale (undifferentiated Marcellus Shale and Mahantango Formation) where there are significant thickness differences between wells.

USGS Alaska Gas Hydrate Assessment Team

USGS Publication: Digital Data Series DDS–69–CCScientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have completed the first assessment of the undiscovered, technically recoverable gas hydrate resources beneath the North Slope of Alaska. This assessment indicates the existence of technically recoverable gas hydrate resources—that is, resources that can be discovered, developed, and produced using current technology.

United States Gulf of Mexico Coastal Plain and State Waters

USGS Publication: Open-File Report 2013–1257The Oligocene Frio and Anahuac Formations were assessed as part of the 2007 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) assessment of Tertiary strata of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico Basin onshore and State waters. Estimated total mean values of technically recoverable, undiscovered resources are 172 million barrels of oil (MMBO), 9.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (TCFG), and 542 million barrels of natural gas liquids for all of the Frio and Anahuac assessment units.

Susitna basin, south-central Alaska

USGS Publication: Open-File Report 2013–1307
We used Rock-Eval pyrolysis and vitrinite reflectance to examine the petroleum source potential of rock samples from the Sheep Creek 1 well in the Susitna basin of south-central Alaska. The results show that Miocene nonmarine coal, carbonaceous shale, and mudstone are potential sources of hydrocarbons and are thermally immature with respect to the oil window.

Journal: Natural Resources Research

Outside PublicationThis study deﬁnes stranded conventional gas resources as gas in identiﬁed (discovered and appraised) conventional oil and gas accumulations which are not currently commercially producible for either physical or economic reasons. The discovered conventional North Slope gas is stranded because there is currently no transportation system to take the gas to a market.

Journal: AAPG Bulletin

Outside Publication
West Edmond field, located in central Oklahoma, is one of the largest oil accumulations in the Silurian–Devonian Hunton Group in this part of the Anadarko Basin. Production from all stratigraphic units in the field exceeds 170 million barrels of oil (MMBO) and 400 billion cubic feet of gas (BCFG), of which approximately 60 MMBO and 100 BCFG have been produced from the Hunton Group. The USGS completed a geologic-based assessment of the undiscovered oil and gas resources of the Anadarko Basin province in western Oklahoma and Kansas, northern Texas, and southeastern Colorado in 2010 (Higley et al., 2011).

Overview

The USGS Energy Resources Program provides periodic assessments of the oil and natural gas endowment of the United States. New, prioritized, assessment results, as part of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) and the current National Assessment are shown above. Additional EPCA and priority basin assessment results will be posted as they become available.